The present invention relates generally to combine headers and feeder houses and, more particularly, to a drive reversing mechanism for reversing the movement of the driven components of the header harvesting mechanism and the feeder house conveyor.
Crop harvesting machines, such as combines, include harvesting mechanisms disposed on forwardly mounted headers to engage crop material on the ground and initiate the crop harvesting process. Combines are provided with conveyors housed within a hollow feeder housing to transfer severed crop material from the header to a threshing mechanism mounted in the base unit. Under certain crop conditions, one or more of the harvesting mechanisms or the conveyor can become plugged with crop material, halting the operation of the entire crop harvesting machine. By reversing the direction of the drive to these harvesting components, they can be operated in reverse to discharge the crop material toward the ground, thereby unplugging the machine in a simple and effective manner to permit a continued harvesting operation.
Various attempts have been made at providing a drive reversing mechanism for crop harvesting machines, such as found in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,138,837 and 4,218,864, for example. However, these mechanism are not easily adapted to a variety of different combines or other harvesting machines; they cannot be quickly and easily "rocked", i.e., rapidly switched between forward and reverse directions; and they do not attach to the crop harvesting machine to become an integral part of the drive line to reverse the operation of both the header harvesting components and the feeder house conveyor.